Dan Christensen, (October 6, 1942 – January 20, 2007) was an American abstract painter He is best known for paintings that relate to

Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...

, Color field painting, and Abstract expressionism. Christensen was born in Cozad, Nebraska, and died in Easthampton, New York. His early work from 1965-1966 was related to Minimalism. A graduate of the

Kansas City Art Institute The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) is a private art school in Kansas City, Missouri. The college was founded in 1885 and is an accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and Higher Learning Commission. It has approx ...

, class of 1964, where he studied alongside Ronnie Landfield and Sherron Francis, Dan Christensen moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

from the Mid-West during the late summer of 1965. Christensen was represented by several influential galleries including the Andre Emmerich Gallery, the Salander/O'Reilly Gallery and various others throughout the United States and Europe. He has had more than seventy-five solo exhibitions and his work has been included in hundreds of group exhibitions. His paintings are in important museum collections throughout the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

Art world beginnings

Dan Christensen arrived in

in the summer of 1965 from the Mid-West, with the purpose of establishing himself as an important contemporary abstract painter. With his friend from Iowa - the painter David Wagner, he rented a loft on Great Jones Street in lower Manhattan. After several months of experimenting on new abstract paintings with interlocking rectangular "L" shapes in shades of tan, grey, ochre and brown that resembled jigsaw puzzles in oil paint, he began to use

acrylic paint Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. De ...

. Christensen began painting the series of abstract paintings for which he became first known - his Minimal "Bar" paintings in the spring of 1966. After Dave Wagner returned to Iowa in March 1966, his friend the painter Ronnie Landfield shared his Great Jones Street loft with him until the early winter of 1967. Dan Christensen was part of a large circle of young artists who had come to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

during the 1960s. Kenneth Showell, Peter Young, Michael Steiner, Ronnie Landfield, Dick Anderson, his brother Don Christensen, Peter Reginato, Carlos Villa, David R. Prentice, James Monte, Frosty Myers, Tex Wray,

Larry Zox Larry is a masculine given name in English, derived from Lawrence or Laurence. It can be a shortened form of those names. Larry may refer to the following: People Arts and entertainment * Larry D. Alexander, American artist/writer *Larry Boone ...

Larry Poons Lawrence M. "Larry" Poons (born October 1, 1937) is an American abstract painter. Poons was born in Tokyo, Japan, and studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician. After ...

, Robert Povlich, Neil Williams (artist), Carl Gliko, Billy Hoffman, Francine Tint, Lee Lozano, Pat Lipsky, John Griefen,

Brice Marden Brice Marden (born October 15, 1938) is an American artist generally described as Minimalist, although his work may be hard to categorize. He lives and works in New York City; Tivoli, New York; Hydra, Greece; and Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania. Lif ...

, John Chamberlain,

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York City. Biography Frank Stella was born in Ma ...

Carl Andre Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear and grid format sculptures and for the suspected murder of contemporary and wife, Ana Mendieta. His sculptures range from large public art ...

Dan Graham Daniel Graham (March 31, 1942 – February 19, 2022) was an American visual artist, writer, and curator in the writer-artist tradition. In addition to his visual works, he published a large array of critical and speculative writing that spanned ...

Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and mu ...

, Robert Rauschenberg,

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...

Bob Neuwirth Robert John Neuwirth (June 20, 1939May 18, 2022) was an American folk singer, songwriter, record producer, and visual artist. He was noted for being the road manager and associate of Bob Dylan, as well as the co-writer of Janis Joplin's hit s ...

Joseph Kosuth Joseph Kosuth (; born January 31, 1945), an American conceptual artist, lives in New York and London,

Mark di Suvero Marco Polo di Suvero (born September 18, 1933, in Shanghai, China), better known as Mark di Suvero, is an abstract expressionist sculptor and 2010 National Medal of Arts recipient. Biography Early life and education Marco Polo di Suvero was bor ...

, Sherron Francis,

Brigid Berlin Brigid Emmett Berlin (September 6, 1939 – July 17, 2020) was an American artist and Warhol superstar. Early years Berlin was born on September 6, 1939 in Manhattan in New York City. She was the eldest of three daughters born to socialite parent ...

Lawrence Weiner Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942December 2, 2021) was an American conceptual artist. He was one of the central figures in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s. His work often took the form of typographic texts, a form of word a ...

, Rosemarie Castoro,

Marjorie Strider Marjorie Virginia Strider (January 26, 1931 – August 27, 2014) was an American painter, sculptor and performance artist best known for her three-dimensional paintings and site-specific soft sculpture installations. Biography Born in 1931 in Gu ...

Dorothea Rockburne Dorothea Rockburne DFA (born c. 1932) is an abstract painter, drawing inspiration primarily from her deep interest in mathematics and astronomy. Her work is geometric and abstract, seemingly simple but very precise to reflect the mathematical co ...

Colette Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (; 28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954), known mononymously as Colette, was a French author and woman of letters. She was also a mime, actress, and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaking world for her ...

, and Marisol were just a few of the artists he saw regularly at

Max's Kansas City Max's Kansas City was a nightclub and restaurant at 213 Park Avenue South in New York City, which became a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s. It was opened by Mickey Ruskin (1933–1983) in Decembe ...

— the favorite place for artists in

during the 1960s.

Early career

In the late fall of 1966 the art dealer Richard Bellamy visited the Great Jones Street loft and began to represent Dan Christensen's work. Bellamy invited Christensen to exhibit his paintings at the Noah Goldowsky Gallery in the late spring of 1967. Dorothy Herzka co-curated a group exhibition that included Dan Christensen, Ronnie Landfield, Kenneth Showell, and Peter Gourfain in February 1967 at the Bianchini Gallery on W. 57th Street in

. All of those four painters were invited to be included in the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

's 1967 Annual exhibition. In the late spring of 1967 Dan Christensen began painting with spray guns and produced his first "linear spray paintings," for which he became famous. By 1968 he began to exhibit his paintings in important art galleries from New York to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and worldwide. In the late 1960s he participated in several important exhibitions that traveled throughout the United States, including the

Exhibition that originated at the

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The Aldrich has no permanent collection and is the only museum in Connecticut that is dedicated solely to the exhibition of contemporary art. The museum presents the first ...

. During the remainder of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s Christensen regularly exhibited his paintings at the

André Emmerich André Emmerich (October 11, 1924 – September 25, 2007) was a German-born American gallerist who specialized in the color field school and pre-Columbian art while also taking on artists such as David Hockney and John D. Graham. Early life and ...

Gallery, the Noah Goldowsky Gallery in

, the Rolf Ricke Gallery in W. Germany, the Nicholas Wilder Gallery in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

, and the Meredith Long Gallery both in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, and

. Dan Christensen's paintings were included in the

's annual exhibition's in 1967, 1968 and 1969 and in the first biennial exhibition in 1973. During the late 1960s and 1970s Dan Christensen's paintings were included in numerous group exhibitions, in influential galleries and museums. His work was included in several important articles in the media about the newest generation of American artists. His work was discussed and reviewed in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'', ''

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...

'', '' Art in America'', ''Art News'', and many other periodicals. In 1968 he was awarded a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

Grant and he was awarded a 1969 Guggenheim fellowship.

Late career

Christensen's abstract paintings changed and evolved throughout his career. During the final ten years of his life he moved with his family to

East Hampton, New York The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York. At the time of the 2020 United States census, it had a tot ...

from

. From November 2001 through February 2002 Christensen had a retrospective exhibition at The Butler Institute of American Art in

Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County. At the 2020 census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. It is a principal city of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area, whi ...

; and shows of his paintings in galleries in Boca Raton, Florida, Houston, Texas, Santa Fe, New Mexico,

and in 2007 he had a retrospective exhibition at the Spanierman Gallery in

. His paintings are in the permanent collections of The

, The

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

,,MoMA
/ref> the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, in

, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desig ...

Washington, DC., the

Chicago Art Institute The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, the Nelson-Atkins Museum Kansas City, Missouri,

Boca Raton Museum of Art Founded by artists, the Boca Raton Museum of Art was established in 1950 as the Art Guild of Boca Raton. The organization has grown to encompass an Art School, Guild, Store, and Museum with permanent collections of contemporary art, photography, ...

and dozens of others.

Recent

On January 18, 2007 Dan Christensen enjoyed the opening of an important survey exhibition of paintings selected from his long painting career, spanning the years from 1966 until 2007 at the Spanierman Gallery on E. 58th Street in

. After enduring

Polymyositis Polymyositis (PM) is a type of chronic inflammation of the muscles (inflammatory myopathy) related to dermatomyositis and inclusion body myositis. Its name means "inflammation of many muscles" ('' poly-'' + '' myos-'' + '' -itis''). The inflam ...

for nearly nineteen years, Dan Christensen died on Saturday, January 20, 2007. He is survived by his wife Elaine Grove Christensen (sculptor & actress), and his three sons: Moses, James (of the Hip Hop group Junk Science, currently signed to

Definitive Jux Definitive Jux was a record label based in New York City. It was co-founded in 1999 by El-P and Amaechi Uzoigwe. History Definitive Jux was initially known as Def Jux. However, popular hip hop label Def Jam Recordings sued Def Jux over the nam ...

records) and William, his brother Don and his two sisters Marilyn and Kay.

References

External links

*http://www.danchristensen.com/ *http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/obituaries/27christensen.html *http://spaniermanmodern.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/video-elaine-grove-on-dan-christensens-plaid-paintings/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Christensen, Dan 1942 births 2007 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters Abstract painters Painters from New York City People from Manhattan Kansas City Art Institute alumni People from Cozad, Nebraska People from East Hampton (town), New York Artists from Nebraska Burials at Green River Cemetery 20th-century American male artists